I have my hard drive partitioned with an empty partition that I'd been considering condensing into my Mint partition. I was wondering, if I install Windows XP on that, if I can re-install the MintGRUB without reinstalling Linux Mint. I can install GRUB, but I've got no clue how to get the Linux Mint version back. Any ideas?

Yes you can re-install grub to the mbr pretty easily. Download and burn a live cd iso called SuperGrub. The link is below. You can use this to boot into your Linux install after you install Windows. Don't try to fix anything with it, just use it to boot into the Linux install.

After you have Windows installed and working use Supergrub to boot into your Linux install. Let's say the Linux install is on sda5 and you have only one drive. Open a terminal and type:

sudo grub

root (hd0,4)

setup (hd0)

quit

Close the terminal. The boot is back on Mint.

You won't be able to boot Windows however. You will have to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and put the Windows chainload stanza in at the end of that file.

A word of caution. You can't put Windows just anywhere like you can Linux and expect it to boot. Windows must be on a primary partition and wants to be on the first partition. If it isn't on the first primary partition it can get a little tricky to get it to boot.

Fred

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and each time expecting a different result.

Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on the menu. Liberty is an armed lamb protesting the electoral outcome. A Republic negates the need for an armed protest.

No, SuperGrub doesn't use gfx. That is why I told him to only use SuperGrub to boot into the Mint install, then use the the native Mint grub commands to re-install the kernel to the mbr.

It is nice to have a copy of SuperGrub around. It will boot almost anything. It also can restore the Windows mbr file. That is why I usually tell people to use SuperGrub. They will then have it if/when they need it again.

Also in this case he is going to have to edit his menu.lst to get Windows to boot and that is easier to do from the native install, especially with Mint 5 which doesn't mount partitions by default.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Fred

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and each time expecting a different result.

Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on the menu. Liberty is an armed lamb protesting the electoral outcome. A Republic negates the need for an armed protest.